R's rue

I was a secondary school teacher for four decades. When I first arrived in South Yorkshire, I was teaching at a big comprehensive school on the edge of a large mining village. The pit was still working then - bringing up black diamonds from far below the earth's surface. I could see one of the great spoil or slag heaps from my classroom window. In those days, I did not own a television so I was only dimly aware of  a popular new TV drama series that appeared in the late seventies. Like many shows, it concerned itself with crime and clever detective work. The main protagonist was a character called Eddie Shoestring played by an actor called Trevor Eve. In fact, the show was called "Shoestring". For two or three years it was pretty popular. School teachers are often given nicknames by the student body and it was widely agreed that I looked like Trevor Eve . Consequently my nickname became Shoestring or sometimes Bootlace. There are far worse nicknames I could...

  Tim with Sitges friend 2018 Like most families, mine can be slightly unpredictable when arranging a meet.  Someone is distracted and is late, someone wants to eat early, someone forgot the time, someone( like me) is invariably early.  I’ve learned to go with the flow.  We generally all get together when we need to. Last night was my brother in laws birthday. We all arranged to meet at our usual table for 8.30 pm so I donned my second best  I love Sheffield   T shirt and went out to a gay bar around the corner from  La Santa Maria for  an early drink beforehand . Minutes later I was talking to  Greta,  a rather shopworn and heavily made up German lady in her seventies. She was sat at the bar reading a Spanish magazine. Initially I thought she was in drag but as it turned out  darlings  she was indeed a elderly Austrian former Opera Singer from Barcelona.  All this information I gleaned moments after she ...

  As usual I’m sat at a table with my coffee. For me, this is Sitges’ best time of day. La Santa Maria Hotel  has changed hands since we were all last year and the German Matriarch Uta who owned and oversaw everything has been replaced by a faceless manager from a chain of hotels. The place has been streamlined and changes made, most noticeably. In the guise of the Maître d, who is now a 1980s dressed bundle of nerves with a quick temper and bad manners. But breakfast time remains what I always remember it as being. Cheese and sausage and scrambled eggs Lovely coffee and  Peace and quiet. A Spanish version of Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly is playing on the radio and The famous Church of Bartomeu and Santa Tecla has rung out the quarter to nine chimes This pleases me  We are all talking last night of the significance of having a regular family holiday at the same resort in the same hotel when there are too many new places in the world to visit, an...